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Zerocool3001 writes "The recently featured 36-hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to the iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that he 'did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future.' The text of the cease and desist letter is available from the developer's website."

Linking to his poor server twice in as many days. The slashdot hordes make their presence felt yet again!

More on topic though, very honestly, what did he expect submitting it to the Apple and Android app stores? That Sony would just let that happen? Then again, with all the copies already downloaded (did anyone actually get to download it?) it'll be very hard for Sony to prevent this from spreading...

I think that only works with Android for apps within the market, and certainly it was never approved for the Apple market so anyone who has it installed would have done so on a jailbroken set - again I don't think the kill switch works in this scenario (otherwise Apple could render jailbreaking moot by just killing any app that's not in the app store).

Such a think is actually legal in progressive countries like Scandinavian countries : reverse engineering and porting to an unsupported platform is legal and is an exception to several laws. Sony does not provide an alternative way of playing Lemmings for Palm, therefore, it can not claim that this represents a loss. If Sony were to make an official port, then yes, a cease and desist would be lawful.

But yeah, we are all used of the balance of rights like they are in Corporate America so yes, we saw that coming.

Legally allowing porting to an unsupported platform sounds kind of dangerous. Let's say company A releases a game on the XBox 360 three months before they release it on PC. During the intervening period, is it "unsupported" on the PC? Portal was not available on the Mac for a couple-three years, but as of a few weeks back, it is now. Was it "unsupported" in the meantime, and could people have legally cloned it, ripped off all the assets, and distributed it for free?
I don't even think this is a slipper

Indeed, as generous as iD software is with their games, they won't let anybody screw around with the install files. I'm not sure why exactly, but I suspect that they're concerned with anything that might go wrong harming their reputation. In this case it's a matter of money. I wasn't following things closely enough, so apparently he was including the graphics and levels rather than requiring the user to get those from somewhere else. That's pretty much always crossing a line at least in the US.

I'm willing to bet that doing what he did is extremely clearly illegal in every Scandinavian country. He used original artwork, apparently copied the game mechanics to a T and even used the same name.

The "port theory" falls flat when you think of a situation where apps are used as differentiators between platforms: What if iPhone had been hugely succesful because they included Lemmings with their OS -- would it have been ok for Palm to rip them off and do the same thing?

This isn't about "corporate America", it's about copyright and trademark law as it is applied pretty much everywhere in the world. Could you (or the people who think you are Insightful) please explain how this could be legal in Scandinavia?

You seem to miss the fact that he submitted it to an App Store! That's totally illegal in all countries which recognize copyright - even Scandinavian countries (where it might be permitted for personal use). You also don't take into account the fact that Sony might be intending to release it for that platform and that's the entire point of copyright - to allow you to do that without another company doing it before you and taking all your revenue.

I did not see it was submitted to an App Store, yeah, that move was pretty stupid...

By the way, I disagree on the point of copyright. The point of copyright is (was?) to help give a financial incentive to creative and cultural productions and to help the dissemination of cultural works, not to protect anyone's "reserved" revenue. Lemmings has been released two decades ago. Porting it is shown to be a straightforward 36-hours work that is not done probably for political or revenue reasons. Having it ported

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and its subsidiary Psygnosis (collectively "SCEE") have published or licensed "Lemmings" games...

Lemmings was developed by DMA Design, and published by Psygnosis:

The end of Psygnosis came when, in 1999, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) completely absorbed the company. Psygnosis' head office in Liverpool and studios in Stroud, Camden and Leeds were rebranded as Sony Studio Liverpool, Stroud, Camden and Leeds, with other studios being closed.

The person who ported it took everything from the original game and released it on a newer platform. That is like someone taking Sonic the Hedgehog or Mario bros and porting it over with all the same graphics, sounds, and design.

They're protecting their property from theft, here. Had he used his own art, sounds, etc, with the same gameplay then Sony wouldn't really have a leg to stand on, but he basically stole everything from the original and ported it over. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. He shouldn't have assumed that he could take the assets without asking.

But only because the law is broken. Lemmings was first released in 1991, that's almost 20 years ego. Mario was first released 1981, that's 31 years ego. You should have copyright for 20 years at the outmost maximum. In fact, since we have now the Internet as the fastest delivery platform, the monopoly grand should be much less then 20 years. In the I.T. industry 20 years is like 60 years (or more) in the traditional industry. The copyright in this industry should be much much shorter.

When will you IP trolls learn that Copyright Infringement and Theft are not equal. Theft requires that you are depriving the first party of something by acquiring it in an unlawful manner. You see the first part can never be satisfied in regards to software and text (excluding physical media) as you do not remove their source when you make a copy. Unless of course you decide to hack their servers and delete all their copies when you make yours.

nice to get slashdotted twice in a week - the website still seems to be up this time around.

since i am on vacation (in egypt) for two weeks - i had to simply withdraw the submission and downloads from the application catalogs and own website, since sony gave a 48 hour window, i can deal with it in more detail when i am back from vacation. as for the intellectual property, no original code was uses (in fact, the palm os version was my own implementation) the only thing that is definitely "used" is the name (Lemmings) and the original EGA graphics from the game. even the levels are redesigned in the event that they are not workable with one player mode and the limitations of the palm os platform

IANAL - but since no original files are used, in fact everything is re-created without reference to the original source code, the only infringing rights here are the use of the name "Lemmings". there have been a number of copyright cases dealing with the look and feel - so it can go either way, intellectual property rights come down to if a jury believes there is confusion between the original and the remake.

i will try to open discussions with SCEE (Sony Entertainment) about getting an official license for the game, in fact, we were looking for the original license holders back in 2001 when we did the palm os versions - but it was in flux between Take Two Interactive, Sony and no-one knew their ass from a hole in the ground. the good news is now SCEE are claiming ownership, so we can now talk to them - and we have proof of concepts made, so if they play nice, this title will officially come to these platforms, if not - then you can start saying how evil they are.

if sony own the name lemmings (that's *if*) then they very likely own the copyright original EGA graphics. sony have shut down every lemmings clone that has used the original files or name and left alone every clone that has not. they also released new lemmings games on psp recently so it's not abandonware, How exactly are sony the bad guys here?

every lemmings clone that has used the original files or name and left alone every clone that has not.

we have NOT used the original files, in fact - if you read the blog, you will see how we actually generated the levels using bitmaps and text files for configuration, all built without the original lemmings DAT files (yes, you can use them - but we did not). right now, it comes down to the Lemmings trademark with video games and the look for feel issue.

As I posted yesterday, I was part of the team who created Lemmings in the first place. A minor member, to be sure, but I was there. What bothers me most about these efforts to convert games is not so much the use of the original graphics and certainly not the fact that it's been ported, but the respect that we don't seem to get.
I didn't see any mention of credit for Mike Dailly, who invented the idea, or Russel Kaye who wrote the PC version from which you took the EGA graphics, or Dave Jones who coded the Amiga original, or Gary Timmons who animated the characters, or Scott Johnson who drew background graphics or... well you get the idea.
Intellectual property be damned; did you get in touch with anyone to ask if they were cool with it?
(I once had the experience of reading a rip of the Hired Guns manual which I wrote, with a huge list of credits to all the guy's cracker buddies, but not one mention of anyone who'd spent two years of their lives on the game itself.)
The sad thing is, if you'd asked, I know they'd have been cool with it. (And if you had, then I apologise)

Word to the wise: your first words to SCEE should be "Sorry", followed by "Thank you".

It sounds like you think you didn't really do anything wrong. Uh, no. No, sir. You are guilty as original sin.

SCEE could have bitch-slapped you from here to breakfast, and they really should have done so in order to protect their trademark. Sure, all you have to do is to change the name and the graphics slightly to be fine, but you chose not to do so. As they noted, you chose wilfully to infringe on their trademarks (name, distinctive images) and their copyrights (the EGA graphics).

Don't get me wrong: as hobbyist game developer myself, I admire what you've done and I wish you the best of luck in getting it licensed. But as an ex-professional game developer, I can assure you that I won't view SCEE as being in the least bit evil for defending their rights.

The relevant rule is ASK FIRST, though, as always. The rights holders may be separated (i.e. one owns the graphics, one owns the name, one owns the historical versions of the software, one owns a certain port, one owns the sound, etc.) and impossible to trace - that doesn't give you the right to use anything at all. "Look and feel" is only relevant to similar but non-identical works, in general. You say yourself that you used the original EGA graphics - even if this meant you printed them out on paper, then traced the same pixels onto graph paper and then "digitised" them to pixel-values in your head, it's still a large, gaping legal hole to fall through. Check out the history on certain typefaces. Otherwise, I could scan in a photo, print it out enlarged on graph paper, hand-digitise it by guessing colour values and if I end up with a pixel-by-pixel identical file claim that it's now "my" copyright / right to distribute and not the original photographer's.

You were using the original works as reference, and your works are virtually pixel-for-pixel identical to the original graphics. You *definitely* infringed on any trademarks/brands/etc on the name Lemmings (would it have been difficult to call it something like "Gophers" or similar?) - that's clear-cut "passing-off" on its own. Someone owns the name. Someone owns the graphics. Someone owns each piece of that software/concept, and you have *no* idea who that was. Sometimes those things revert back to the original artists after a while, sometimes they stay with the company forever, sometimes they got lost in a legal limbo and nobody's quite sure who owns them.

It doesn't give you the right to basically rip them off. I appreciate that the original project was fun, entertaining, a good proof-of-concept, etc. but you went *too* close to the wire - calling the damn thing Lemmings and referring to it as that at all times (to be honest, I assumed you were part of the original development team / some sort of official coder when I first saw the article yesterday, and at least one person who posted a comment on here actually WAS), using substantially identical graphics that by your own admission are derived from the original data files (however that may have happened), and then trying to distribute your work (maybe for a fee, maybe not, I don't know).

All you had to do was call it a "Lemmings-clone", make the graphics yourself (come on - Lemmings was EGA resolution with about 5-10 pixel high graphics - you could do that in MS Paint), and then nobody would have cared. You really have no defence here and I'd be surprised if, now, anyone wants to negotiate with you at all in terms of licensing. If you'd asked *FIRST* they might have. Now they know it's possibly popular, and they have damning evidence against you, they'll be setting their licensing fees for you at the top end of the scale - if you can port Lemmings in 36 hours, they can do it in a lot less and take you to the cleaners too.

Would you like to explain how "open sourcing the whole thing" would help the person who owned the trademark that you infringed, or the artwork that you ripped off, in any way? It's like me saying "Yeah, I copied the whole graphics from Red Alert, but hey... the company hasn't been selling it lately and I was going to give it (and other rights on it) away to thousands of people who haven't paid for Red Alert anyway." Despite what you might read on abandonware sites, this is still a blatant copyright violat

> no original files are used, in fact everything is re-created without reference to the original source code,

I don't know where you are, but in Europe that's irrelevant. It's not the source code that's copyrighted, it's the game itself (most software doesn't even ship with the source code - so source code it totally irrelevant when talking about software copyright). It's the design, function, and concept that's copyrighted in Europe and I'm pretty sure the same is true in most other countries that recog

The likelihood of Sony allowing a new port of Lemmings to non-Sony platforms is exactly the same as Nintendo allowing a Mario Bros. port to the iPhone or Xbox: exactly zero. The name, trademark and visual art of Lemmings is a valuable asset, and by making it exclusive to Sony hardware, Sony can claim a minor marketing advantage when the iPhone is eating their lunch. (Granted, few people would buy a PS3 for Lemmings these days, but exclusive ports to new Sony Ericsson phones or the next iteration of the PSP

Yeah, exactly. We issue them with monopoly powers, so they can continue to enrich our culture. What do they do? They sit on them, let them stagnate, and when somebody actually does act in the interest of the public, and makes them available on platforms the original provider has never supported nor, it seems, ever intends to, they shut him down.

So yes, screw Sony. They obtained their "intellectual property" under false pretences, and are now using it for the exact opposite of what it was intended for.

And this is why modern copyright is a complete failure. It is used today not as a tool to enrich both the copyright holder and the public through dissemination of ideas, but as a lock and key to prevent anyone else from using it by very intentionally not disseminating said idea..

May I suggest some form of "Use it or Lose it" clause. I know this is probably wishful thinking, but it seems if you're not using your copyright to protect your financial interests, you should not be permitted to use it as a lock-down control like this.

Would Sony be losing money by allowing this to continue? No, not at all.

They don't use their copyright on the product on a regular basis to protect a version they have out there, and so they should no longer be allowed said copyright. Now if they had a versio

That's an interesting idea. I wonder how effective it would be for developers such as Aaron Ardiri to "violate" copyright but pay the copyright holders royalties for using their intellectual property. That way Sony wouldn't have to spend the money developing the new software and independent developers wouldn't have to worry about new ideas falling flat.

What are the chances Aaron Ardiri would have paid royalties if Sony had asked him to?What are the chances Sony would have accepted royalties as sufficient re

Yes there is. Copyright is not intended as an incentive to create, it is intended as an incentive to publish. Society does not gain anything if you create the best ever novel but never let anyone read it. Society benefits greatly if you create this novel and then circulate it widely. Copyright is a bargain struck between creators and consumers - the consumers agree to grant a time-limited (in theory) monopoly to the creator, in exchange for the creator, in turn, publishing the work.

Yeah, exactly. We issue them with monopoly powers, so they can continue to enrich our culture. What do they do? They sit on them, let them stagnate, and when somebody actually does act in the interest of the public, and makes them available on platforms the original provider has never supported nor, it seems, ever intends to, they shut him down.

How do you know that Sony hadn't licenced versions for those platforms? After all Lemmings is on virtually every platform under the sun (including mobile phones) s

Wow. You are so insightful! Of course you can say whatever the hell you want to if you don't care whether or not it's the truth. It's incredibly disingenuous to say that they've been "sitting on" or letting Lemmings "stagnate":

The popularity of the game led to development of numerous ports to other systems, including most recently ports to the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 in 2006 and 2007, and the creation of several sequels.

How do you or Mobile1UP know that Sony wasn't planning on porting Lemmings to iPhone/iPad/Android? Firstly, you don't. Secondly, it's irrelevant! It's not a condition of copyright, patent or trademark law that you have to make your work available on all platforms past, present and future. The intended purpose of patent and copyright systems is indeed to provide incentive to produce, and therefore advance the state of the art, or enrich culture. However, Lemmings on the Amiga did that. Job done. They (now Sony) have copyright in the original game. That's what they get for developing the game (or rather..buying the developer of the game).

Besides which...you can buy a Lemmings game on a current generation console! How is that letting the property stagnate? And how in the name of Zeus' butthole did you get modded insightful? To have the bare-faced cheek to rip off a game, which, with the exception of a single-screen disclaimer that it's not authorised by SCEE, is indistinguishable from the original Lemmings, and then to try and distribute it through the Apple App-Store is possibly the most retarded thing I've ever seen since Sony tried to install rootkits on their customer's machines. We all love to support "the little guy" against "evil corporations" but this was the single most obvious outcome since that guy [darwinawards.com] tried to play Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic pistol.

Nothing is stopping Mobile1UP from making their own version of a "Lemmings" game [wikipedia.org], with their own graphics resources/levels and their own music etc. Do you think they'd be happy if someone came along and made such an exact copy of one of their original games [mobile1up.com] and started distributing it through the App-Store?

numerous ports to other systems, including most recently ports to the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3

Wow! And Microsoft is truly a master of portable software - after all, once you write the software, it runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7! Maybe even on the server editions! No complaints there whatsoever!

It's not a condition of copyright, patent or trademark law that you have to make your work available on all platforms past, present and future.

No, but it's a crappy business move: On short term, it displeases the potential customers who'd like to buy the game on platforms they own, and on longer term, it annoys retrogamers and game culture researchers who not only have to find the game, but also get the platform to run it on. If the

The fact of the matter is that none of that stuff matters. Maybe they're restricting the platforms that they release it on because they think it will drive sales of the particular platforms where the game is available? That's their right.

It's interesting how Nintendo hasn't released any Mario games on the Xbox360. They most certainly could do it, they've easily got the resources to hire people to do the port, and they've had years and years of time in which they could have done it. And heck, they probably would've sold millions of copies that way. And yet they've chosen not to, because they'd rather use the games to drive sales of their hardware.

While you can certainly argue whether or not Sony restricting lemmings to their hardware is a good business move, it doesn't give you the authority to decide that their IP rights are suddenly irrelevant.

As a stockholder, you would have legal channels with which to pursue your complaints within Sony. But a company making business decisions that you disagree with does not give you permission to ignore their IP rights.

It's already legal to create clones of games, irregardless of when it was released. There are lemmings clones available already for many platforms. You just can't use the title and artwork straight from the game that you're copying.

They said they'd give him 48 hours or they'd sue. How is that nice? They didn't mention that they understood he was not benefitting commercially, they didn't offer to negotiate in order to allow distribution under their auspirces, it was a completely stock-standard C&D. The only way it could have been less "nice" was if they announced they were starting legal action against him immediately.

They didn't mention that they understood he was not benefitting commercially.

Completely irrelevant in the face of blatant rip-off of copyrighted works. I hate copyright law as much as the next slashdot reader, but this again is a good example of where copyright law is actually doing exactly what it was intended to do, protect the rights of the copyright owners. Lemmings is not a abandonware, lemmings is being currently sold on several platforms, no permission was sought to make a clone of the game, and all the original copyrighted artwork was copied.

They're not doing him a favour by issuing a cease and desist - it's a requirement of them demonstrating later that they mitigated against frivolous litigation by at least giving him the chance to rectify his actions. That's not "being nice" it's Sony playing CYA in case this does go to court. Nice would have been a personal response along the lines of recognising he's obviously a great fan but pointing out why this is harmful to their business and they have to protect their rights - the outcome would still

The port also seemed to include a lot of the original artwork, which they definitely do have copyright on. This is much nicer than Sony needed to be - in the US they could claim massive statutory penalties for distributing the game knowing that it contained copyrighted materials that he did not have a license for.

Of course, now that he has complied, the best thing for Sony to do is offer to buy the code from him. He's demonstrated that there's a market for Lemmings on various mobile platforms and already done the hard work of making the code work on them. It would also give Sony some great PR, and they could treat the existing downloads as a promotional offer.

No, their claim rests on the fact that they published the Lemmings games, or licenced out the ability to publish them, and this is a port of one such licenced product. The trademark is within that context of video games. Even if they couldn't trademark it within that narrow context, that still leaves the first part of "he's created a port of a licenced product." The trademark infringement is a separate part of it.

And even if you strike down trademark on the common word "Lemmings" (very doable if expensive), there's still the matter of all the artwork he ripped straight from the original. It's definitely non-trivial, and the answer how he managed to port it all in such a short time is that he copied the artwork and levels verbatim, porting only game engine but retaining (pirating) original game data.

One could say he could continue by releasing his ports stripped of all said data, but with some extraction tool, and allow people with legal PC copies of Lemmings to extract the game assets and use them with the engine. Like Doom for Amiga - you still had to purchase the PC original for the.WAD file - actual content of the game, while the (platform-specific) game engine was purely 3rd party without ID Software involvement or license.

>Heh. Don't be so sure about that - the fact that something is a common word doesn't mean it can't be a trademark, too. Or why do you think we've still got things like Windows and Apple computers?

Because trademarks are given out by retards. No, a trademark can't be a common word, except the process of granting one is cheap, quick, easy and dirty (and invalid trademarks are granted left and right) and the process of challenging it is long, expensive and usually beyond reach of small fishes.

Perhaps for your own use and enjoyment, but making a port (copy of original gameplay) and then putting it in apps-stores? how is that not a trademark/copyright violation? If sony owns the rights to lemmings, they alone should be allowed to port it to the iphone for common distribution.

Now i realize in this case it kind of sucks since the intrepid geeky developer acting alone and (at least partially) out of passion and fanaticism for games/programming gets beaten back by the big soul-sucking mega-corp, but this works both ways, these laws also prevent sony from taken this guys' original games and shamelessly putting them on the PSP without paying him.

From a geek/nerd point of view, the whole '36 hours to port to several platforms' action was cool and all, but in all other aspects, pretty stupid, especially if the guy knew he was gonna violate sony's rights

Yup, you could argue that. And if you distributed the port code and required people to extract the artwork from their own copy of Lemmings, you could probably get away with it. If, on the other hand, you distribute all of the original levels and sprites, then you shouldn't be surprised when the owner of the copyright on all of these things complains. Compare this game, for example, with Pingus [seul.org]. In Pingus, the gameplay is similar, but the levels and other artwork are all original.

Well, if someone made a port of Halo (using the same name, which also happens to be a common word) for the PS3, I'm sure Microsoft would kill them in court. Notice that people CAN legally play Lemmings on recent [blogspot.com] hardware [blogspot.com], so availability isn't an issue and the brand isn't dead.

Microsoft knows this too well as it was close to losing its trademark over Windows before it settled with what is now known as "Linspire."

Do tell. I've always seen it as Lindows getting beat senseless by a huge corporation. I mean, Lindows changed its name. Microsoft didn't seem to do much at all. Even if they gave Lindows money, it probably made little to them.

Microsoft use the "Windows" trademark for their operating system, and they claimed "Lindows" was similar enough to cause confusion in the market. I believe Microsoft were correct in this belief.Lindows, however, counter-claimed that; within the IT industry the term "window(s)" was a generic term, used well before and apart from Microsoft's usage of it as a product name. I believe also that Lindows were correct in this belief.

The two sides were then looking at the trademark dispute being decided in court, wh

If you're throwing money away, never to see it again, perhaps you could send some my way? Look at this screenshot [imageshack.us], posted [slashdot.org] in the original 36-hour port story. I would love to see him argue that his use of the word "Lemmings" was not intended to infringe on their trademark. He didn't set up a dry-cleaners and call it "Lemmings", he did a direct port of "their" game and has tried to publish it to the iPhone app store. What did he think was going to happen?

Also...seriously...how often do you use "lemmings" in everyday conversation? I honestly can't remember the last time I used it in the context of referring to the animal, or in the context of describing herd mentality. (Sheep fit much better once you know the truth about lemmings). In fact the last time I even heard the word "lemming" (outside of the context of the video-game) was on the show QI [wikipedia.org].

Doom is a common word. So is quake, and civilisation. Half life is a common scientific phrase.

But when they are used as the name of a computer game, they become distinctive in the context of computer games.

Do you really think you could release computer games called Doom, Quake, Civilisation, and Half Life, without being accused (correctly) of trying to "pass off" your work as being related to the original, simply because the words are common? Really? Trademarks Do Not Work That Way.

Much as I welcome any opportunity to highlight what a generally crappy corporation Sony is, and how little regard it has for its customers, I have to say there can't be anyone who didn't see this coming. But then if the point of the process was to get a little self promotion going then he's achieved that, he can comply with the cease and desist and for the sake of 36 hours of his time he's got the kind of publicity big companies pay big agencies big monies to attract, so depending on his motivation, maybe he fully expected this outcome but for him it's still a win.

And of course, once the code is in the wild it pretty much doesn't matter that it's removed from the original source, Sony's lawyers might be busy playing Whac-a-mole for years to come.

And of course, once the code is in the wild it pretty much doesn't matter that it's removed from the original source, Sony's lawyers might be busy playing Whac-a-mole for years to come.

And they have every legal right to.

Whac-A-Mole was invented in 1971 by Aaron Fechter of Creative Engineering, Inc. [citation needed] Fechter designed the first Whac-a-Mole and was persuaded to sell it outright to a carnival operator who, in turn, sold it to Bob's Space Racers. Fechter did not patent the invention.

Look at what he produced, it is a straight port of the game. Everything is the same.

There is no WAY this would fly especially as the Lemmings games are still sold for various platforms commercially. SOME companies TOLERATE old material being used freely but that is only if they don't see any future potential in it.

Lemmings still has potential.

Now you could start a discussion about copyright reform and such, but for now, making a blatant PORT (this is far further then a copy of the idea, it is the same idea) is illegal.

And Sony was nice enough about it, they have given him 48 hours to clean the stuff up and are not even pressuring him to destroy all the distrubuted copies. Basically they are saying, "Well we don't like it but if you don't do it anymore we won't hold you responsible for the damages caused so far".

Frankly, if I were him I would thank Sony on his bare knees. For a stunt he should NEVER have distributed the ports and for a "software should be free" he should never have signed his name.

You CAN make a Ufo: Enemy unknown game is you wished, you could even use enemies with the same capabilties (I doubt the makers would want a lawsuit over the *cough* Alien *cough* that impregnates your soldiers only for another *cough* Alien *cough* to burst out from them to go to court.) but a direct port? Nope.

Nice project kid, great way to get your name out there. Now take the extremely nice offer of Sony to clean it all up.

Confidentiality is generally something that *two* parties have agreed to (i.e. one party and a confidante). Besides, legal communication is rarely sealed, except on a judge's explicit order, and this is a legal communication to the person who publicised it. You can't sue someone for them choosing to publish their own mail online, unless you have sent them something REALLY secret, obviously not to be disseminated and/or sent accidentally.

Now Sony can also sue him because he published the email's content. See the disclaimer on the bottom: "This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. ":-)

That doesn't mean what you're suggesting it means. He is the entity that the contents et al were addressed to. He's making use of those contents by sharing them with others. That's entirely fine.

That idiotic boilerplate is pointlessly applied to tonnes of corporate e-mail under the crazy thought that if it's sent to the wrong person (as in the sender gets the address wrong), the incorrect recipient legally isn't allowed to act upon anything they've learned. I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty convinced that

The value of their trademark is being diluted. If these ports crash, or contain rootkits, or brick your handset, that harms Sony. They enjoy the right to be protected from that possibility.

They also enjoy the right to bring their own ports to those platforms at a time of their choosing. What makes you think they're not "planning" to do so?

The punitive damages in this case don't have to be huge, they just need to be large enough to punish the wilful infringement that's occurred here.

For once, I'm entirely with Sony. They've been quite restrained in their actions, but if they choose to bitch slap the developer into the poor house, I'll cheer them on, and anyone who produces (or "plans" to produce) anything themselves should too.

Damn straight skippy. They're concerned that people will think that they have to use third parties to crash, brick and spy on you. That's something that they're perfectly capable of doing on their own, thank you very much.